Zero to 165

by A. R. Moler

  "That was…" Cam whispered, voice trailing off.

  "Amazing? Weird?"

  "Or something. I feel like my brain's still just a little out of whack. Can we just sleep now?" Cam tightened his hold on Mason slightly.

  "Yeah."

  "And you don't have to work in the morning?"

  Mason could feel the residual unease in Cam from the past weeks. "I'll be here when you wake up, I promise."

  ***

  Waking up under the weight of Mason's arm was the best morning Cam had experienced in what felt like a very long time. He could hear Mason's slow even breathing, and feel the light gust of it across his shoulder.

  Turning slowly, Cam rolled up on his side to gaze at his partner. Mason's eyes were closed, framed by dark lashes, beard stubble shadowed his jaw and highlighted the warm color of his mouth. Cam could feel the subtle buzz of Mason's healing energy field crawling along his skin and it slowly dawned on him that after several days of aching pain from the tumble down the ladder, nothing hurt. Ah, now he knew why Mason was still asleep. The man usually slept so lightly that he woke for a least a few minutes any time Cam woke up, unless all his energy had been put to use in healing.

  Cam wondered if he dared get out of bed for a bathroom run and to fire up the coffee pot. He didn't want Mason to wake alone. Cam kissed Mason softly, and Mason groggily opened his eyes.

  "I'm gonna go get the coffee going. You can stay right there," Cam said.

  "'kay."

  Errands done, Cam slid back into the toasty bed. Mason was looking only slightly more awake. Cam snuggled up close, relishing the feel of his warm, sleepy lover in his arms.

  "I'm not sure I can do this again," said Cam.

  "Do what?"

  "Be apart for more than a few days. I used to think the two week work-up cruises were nothing."

  "Hon', I thought you wanted to try and put your twenty in, and maybe it was just because this was the first time we've been apart that long," replied Mason.

  "I have other options."

  "Like?"

  "I could request a transfer to the Fleet Replacement Squadron. There's less flying, but no full blown deployments. Most of the time I would spend away would be just a few days here and there. There's also non-flying assignments."

  Mason rubbed a hand across Cam's chest. "But are you going to be miserable if you're not in the air at least occasionally?"

  "Maybe. That's why I think FRS might be doable."

  "Having you gone was rough on me but it sounds like you were coming apart at the seams," Mason said.

  "Yeah, I know," Cam admitted. "I need to talk to some people about how a transfer like that would affect my career, but honestly I think I'd sacrifice the faster track for some sanity." He kissed Mason.

  Mason smiled. "I don't like what you had to go through, but I think I like that I represent a piece of your sanity. Besides Navy people, I think we also need to talk to Peter and Stephen about what happened."

  Cam made a face.

  "I know you think seeing Stephen's a little daunting, but he has some good insights. We're long past the part where you have to worry who knows about us, too."

  "Yeah, I guess you have a point."

  ***

  The next four weeks were blissfully routine. Work was normal, bordering on boring. Cam was home every night and after the weeks spent apart, that put a delicious hint of sanity in his life.

  Chapter Eleven

  Being told he needed to report to the Command Master Chief's office baffled Cam slightly, but he figured it involved some sort of routine paperwork issues. He was shown to a tiny conference room and left alone for ten minutes or so before anyone showed up.

  The door was opened by the CMC, a man in his forties with graying temples. "This is Lt. Bradshaw. I'll be right outside if you need me," he said to the squadron's female chaplain, who was entering the room.

  Cam swallowed. Why were they sending him a chaplain? The door shut quietly.

  "I have a somewhat delicate but critical matter to discuss with you. Please have a seat" She gestured toward one the chairs at the small table.

  Cam immediately wondered if someone had filed some sort of complaint about his relationship with Mason. DADT was dead but that didn't mean there wasn't still a certain amount of shit flying around.

  "Lt. Bradshaw, are you familiar with a woman named Stephanie Pender?" asked the chaplain.

  "Um, yes. I dated her for a little while," replied Cam.

  "I'm afraid I have to ask, but was your relationship of sexual nature?"

  Oh hell, was Steph belatedly alleging he had raped her? Cam swallowed hard and told the truth. "I had sex with Stephanie several times. It was all completely consensual."

  "That's fine. Good even. Were you aware she had a daughter?"

  "Huh? No. Had?" Now Cam was both relieved and really confused.

  "Your name is listed on the birth certificate as the father. The child was born on the twelfth of January," said the chaplain.

  Cam's brain locked up. Daughter. Birth certificate. Father. He had a child. It took him another minute or so to formulate something remotely coherent to say.

  "Stephanie, she moved out of the area. I haven't seen her in the better part of a year. I guess this means I'm being sued for child support?" he asked struggling to absorb the idea.

  "No sir. It's a little more complicated than that. Ms. Pender died in a car accident six days ago."

  "Uh… um… and the… baby?"

  "Was in day care at the time. She was placed in emergency foster care, but now she's in the hospital. The medical staff is uncertain what's wrong with her. We'd like to get your written permission for some further testing."

  "She's sick? What kind of sick?" Cam asked.

  "I'm afraid I don't have very many details. All I know is she fell ill a couple of days after her mother's death."

  "Where is she? Can I see her? I had no idea I had a child. God, Stephanie never told me she was pregnant. I would have offered to help at least financially or something," Cam babbled.

  "She's at the MCV hospital in Richmond at the moment. It would probably be possible for you to see her, but I'll need to make some phone calls."

  "Does this mean she's mine? I mean do I get custody?"

  "I don't know. I was sent to notify you and obtain your signature. I'm really not sure about the rest of it. If you could sign where the X's are?" she said, offering him a pair of forms.

  Cam couldn't decide if this whole situation was making him feel panicked or stunned or maybe it was both. A sick baby… his baby… Cam's mind circled back to the sick part. He needed Mason.

  "I need to call someone. He's a doctor and a friend of mine," replied Cam. He hastily scrawled his signature across the appropriate blanks

  "That would be fine. You can sit here and make your phone call and I'll go make mine, and we'll see what we both can find out, okay?"

  "Thank you… What's the baby's name? Or do you know?"

  "Jocelyn Anne Pender, but the daycare provider said that her mother called her Josie."

  ***

  Mason was almost finished with the post-op appointment for one of his hip surgery patients when there was a knock of the exam room door. Tyra leaned in.

  "Dr. Flynn, you have phone call," she said.

  Mason was vaguely annoyed but knew it might be important because Tyra was savvy enough to take a message for anything non-urgent.

  "Who is it?" he asked.

  "It's Cam. He said it was an emergency."

  That caught Mason's attention. Anything that prompted Cam to call him in the middle of a work day and imply to Tyra that he needed to talk to Mason right now generated just a hint of panic in Mason.

  "I'll be back as soon as possible," said Mason to the elderly gentleman sitting in the wheelchair.

  Out in the hallway, Mason snagged the phone at the phlebotomist's counter.

  "Cam?" he said.

  "I'm sorry, but I've got a crisis going on.
I need you."

  "Are you injured?" Mason asked, his first thought being Cam was in need of his healing Talent's.

  "No, I'm fine. I have a baby daughter and she's so sick she in the PICU in a hospital in Richmond."

  Mason blinked. He couldn't possibly have heard that right. "You what?"

  "I know. It's a shock. I just found out. I used to date this woman named Stephanie, a couple of months before I met you. She had a baby about a month and a half ago. I'm listed as the father on the birth certificate. Mason, I don't even know if she's really mine, but Stephanie's dead and the baby's in really bad shape and they asked me to sign paperwork for testing. If she's mine, if she's that sick… Jesus, Mason, I signed the paperwork but I don't know what to do."

  Mason stared at the wall trying to process the information. He knew that there had been women in Cam's life before the two of them got involved. It didn't defy logic that Cam could have fathered a child. People had "accidents" all the time. The fact that the baby was sick enough to be in the pediatric intensive care unit raised a major red flag in front of Mason from purely a doctor and healer point of view.

  "Mason…are you still there?" Cam asked.

  "Uh… yeah. I'm thinking. You said the mother is dead?"

  "Yes. Otherwise I never would have even known about this."

  "How long ago? When she gave birth?" Mason asked.

  "No, no. Everything was apparently SOP until six days ago when Stephanie died in a head-on traffic accident."

  "And the baby was hurt in the same collision?"

  "No, she was at daycare. Two days after the accident, the baby got sick. The ombudsman's office only has some of the details. She stopped eating and started screaming and there was something about seizures… That's all I know."

  "Do you know which hospital she's in?"

  "MCV in Richmond," replied Cam.

  "Oh. I don't have privileges there. I'll have to make some phone calls. Come meet me here. I have to finish up a patient, then I can start making phone calls while you drive," Mason said.

  "You're not freaking out."

  "I think that'll be later. Figuring out if I can help a gravely ill infant that might be your child is step one."

  "Okay. I'll be there in about twenty to twenty-five minutes."

  Mason went to grab Graham, who was still easing his way into the practice, and tell him that he needed to help Kyle cover Mason's patients for the rest of the day and quite possibly tomorrow.

  ***

  The drive to Richmond was nerve-wracking. Cam drove, probably too fast. Mason sat in the passenger seat reading the very limited information that had been photocopied and given to Cam.

  "It says her blood type is B positive. That matches yours. Short of a DNA test, that merely confirms that she could be yours," said Mason.

  "I wish I knew why Stephanie didn't tell me she was pregnant. I suppose it registered in some way that it was a possibility. The last time I was with her… The condom ripped. I figured she was on the pill anyway and the chances of bad fallout were… well… slim." Cam had a vague memory of that night. It hadn't seemed like a very big deal at the time.

  "Why did you stop seeing her?"

  "She didn't like the fact I'm Navy. She made some jokes about hell freezing over before she ever moved every three years for twenty or thirty years."

  "That could be a key piece of why she didn't tell you," offered Mason.

  "I guess. I wonder why she didn't hit me up for child support the day after the kid was born. Maybe… Maybe I'm just a name on a form and not actually the father."

  "I don't know. I'm going to call the hospital and start seeing what I can set up regarding getting access as physician."

  "Okay." Cam only halfway paid attention to Mason's phone calls over the next hour.

  ***

  The paperwork with the signatures had been faxed to the hospital and the staff had been told to anticipate a visit from the man assumed to be the biological father. Even so, Cam stood impatiently in the hallway outside the PICU waiting for someone to take him to see the baby.

  Mason put a hand on Cam's shoulder. "It'll be okay. We'll get this figured out."

  "And if she's not mine?"

  "As a healer I'll do what I can for her, and that will be the end of it."

  A nurse approached them. "Mr. Bradshaw?"

  "Yes," answered Cam.

  "I'm Melody. I'm here to take you to see Jocelyn Pender. Come with me."

  Cam followed her through the doors, Mason a step behind him.

  The room was dimly lit in some spots, more bright in others. Electronic equipment beeped and ventilators whooshed and Cam felt like he had stepped into another world.

  "Jocelyn is actually relatively stable at the moment. She's being kept under mild sedation because of the seizure activity and the muscle spasms, but she's breathing on her own and her heart rate is steady. I was told you signed paperwork for more testing, which is good because the doctors still have no idea why this happened," said the nurse.

  She led them to a small raised bed along one side of the room. A tiny form wearing only a diaper lay surrounded by tubes and wires. The baby barely looked real.

  "I know it looks awful, but truthfully there are babies here that are in much worse shape," said Melody. "You can touch her if you like. I have to check on the little boy in the next bed over. I'll be close if you have questions."

  Cam looked at Mason. Mason nodded. Cam rubbed his sweaty palm against his slacks before he dared stretch out his hand. He touched a fingertip to her tiny foot. She twitched a little and he yanked his hand back.

  "It's okay. She just wiggled," Mason said. He laid a hand on Cam's back and spoke softly in his ear. "Drop your shields some. If she is yours, she might respond."

  Cam glanced back at Mason. Did he really want to leave himself that open here in this chaotic place? Then he realized that Mason had moved his hand to place it on the back of Cam's neck, so they were touching skin on skin. Mason was there to anchor him if he needed it.

  Allowing his shielding to fall open felt like a calculated risk, but Cam did it anyway. He let two fingers rest on Jocelyn's little flexed knee, and felt the wave of barely suppressed misery of sensory overload from her. It reminded him of the raw sandpaper pain he had felt the couple of weeks he had been on the carrier last month. It was like a gut punch, she was psi and completely overwhelmed. Only Mason's sudden tight grip around Cam's waist kept him from falling to his knees.

  "Deep breath, I'm right here," murmured Mason. Cam wasn't sure he'd ever been so thankful to have Mason at his back. Cam ran his fingers very carefully up her leg and across her minute chest. She twitched and jerked and her eyes opened a fraction. As his finger traced down over top of wires and tubes from her shoulder to her hand, she settled.

  Tiny fingers closed around his larger one. She huffed out a contented little sound and drew her arm in to her chest, pulling his hand with it. He could sense that she was somewhat comfortable for the first time in forever. Cam's entire body bent forward as his free arm curled around her tiny form. His head pressed against the mattress at her shoulder, and had to hold his breath for a moment to maintain some kind of control.

  "How could they do this to her?" Cam whispered as he lifted his head again.

  "They're just doing the best they can. They don't know she's different." Mason's hands kneaded at the tension in Cam's shoulders. "Stay with her. I'll go talk to Melody and see if maybe we can convince them to let you hold her for a little while." Mason brushed a light kiss over Cam's cheekbone before he walked away.

  Cam slowly returned his focus to look down at his daughter's little face. She was his. He was sure. He'd go through a DNA test to prove it to a court, but he had no doubts.

  Josie blinked at him in a groggy sort of way. Could babies look confused? Everywhere his fingers touched her, he could feel this sort of pleasant confusion, like she was surprised that his touch didn't hurt. The thought made him want to scream in frustration. W
hy hadn't Stephanie told him? The woman had been absolutely headblind, but he supposed mother-child bonding probably overrode that problem on the baby's end of things. What did they say her birth date was? Mid-January? He couldn't remember the exact date that the lady in the Ombudsman office had told him. That made Jocelyn less than two months old. She seemed so tiny, but what did he know about babies.

  Mason came back in with the nurse.

  "Dr. Flynn said you'd like to hold her?" asked Melody.

  "Y-yes, if I'm allowed. I mean if it's safe and won't put her in any danger," replied Cam.

  "Let me go double check with someone, but I think it will probably be all right. I'll be back in just a couple minutes," said the nurse.

  While she was gone, Cam whispered to Mason. "She's psi."

  "I know. I watched your face the moment you touched her. You seem pretty sure she's yours."

  "Stephanie may have been cute and good in bed, but she was as headblind as a doorknob. Touching Jocelyn… it feels… I don't have any words really. It just feels …" Cam trailed off.

  Mason wrapped an arm around Cam and hugged him. "It's okay. I understand."

  Melody returned. "I need to unhook a few things and it's probably going to be a little awkward with the EKG leads and all but we can do it. Why don't you grab that rocking chair and pull it over here? Have a seat and I'll hand her to you."

  The baby fussed weakly, and kicked her legs as Melody unhooked the feeding tube and a few other things. Cam sat in the chair, apprehensive and longing.

  "Oh, that's odd. She wasn't doing that when you touched her. Usually she thrashes and flails when anybody touches her," commented the nurse. "It's a little piece of the reason why she's under mild sedation, otherwise she often gets hysterical."

  Mason and Cam looked at each other. The nurse carefully gathered up the baby who was definitely not happy about it and wrapped her in a blanket. The infant was deposited very gently in Cam's arms.

  "She hates to be held, so keep a good grip on her," cautioned Melody.